


the way we bruise

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Belligerent Sexual Tension, Bruises, F/M, Incest, Love Bites, Sex, Sexual Tension, Sibling Incest, Vaginal Fingering, argument, my apologies it’s GOT what can i do, oral sex (mention), sex mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-18 23:55:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19345288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: “I know you act stupid half the time. I never considered before that it might be true.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 23-24 June 2019.

He crawled out before she woke in the morning. It was better that way, he thought. Easier. For both of them, it would be easier. They could just pretend this never happened.

He had a very mediocre breakfast cooked by a very sleepy steward, and then it was sparring in the courtyard for an hour — two hours — three, and when he called for a break he was sweated through his clothes, stripped bare to the waist and sore all over.  
Gods, he’d forgotten how much this hurt. He’d dropped his sword half a dozen times, twisted out from his grip, which was no very pleasant business, and his left arm — his sword arm, now — was bruised all over.

No wonder they started this _knight_ nonsense when they were children. Any grown adult with the sense of a worm would call it off.

Meanwhile: Jaime felt like he’d finally began to clear his head.

And then he glanced up.

She was there. Watching. How long? God, didn’t she have anything better to do than watch him fail?

He turned away.

“Again?” he said to the master — and lost his sword to the same break three times in a row.

The next time he looked up, Brienne was gone.

 

  
He’d asked one of the archers to work with him, to see if there was any way...?

No, they decided, after an hour. He couldn’t tension the string correctly or release it cleanly with the false hand, and trying the other way meant the arrow slipped out and tumbled around.

“My lord, we could design a prosthesis, there are adaptions ....”

No. One useless ornament was enough. He shook his head. “Thank you, ser. It doesn’t surprise me I cannot draw back a bow; even before my injury I never was an archer of any note.”

“Your skills were in another direction. No one who served under you ever had cause for complaint.”

Jaime thought of what Cersei would say to that, and thanked him with little grace.

He lingered alone by the earthen heaps meant to catch wayward shots, before the fields stretching out long and bare, and found a stray arrow gone missing, half-buried in the dirt.

He rubbed his fingers over the fletching.

Brienne.

She hadn’t sought him out, hadn’t chased him to the courtyard to argue or beat him around the head, as he’d thought she might, as he would do if he’d been her.

And now he hadn’t seen her for hours.

 _Stupid_ , he told himself, to feel like this over a woman. Stupid to feel some part of himself was gone. Stupid to feel as though anything were changed.

It was later than he’d thought, when he finally went indoors; the grounds were empty. Even the boys and dogs were finished supper, trying to find an scrap of floor to rest down their heads.

He should have been hungry. He should have requested supper, wine, a bath. Someone to air his clothes. 

Instead he stumbled down one hall and then another, only half-aware of where he was going, thinking _I hate the North, I hate this place, I want to be home._

It didn’t surprise him at all that his door was bolted; nothing went well today. He rattled it, like that would answer, then rested his head against the wood a moment. He’d go back to the hall and find someone to help. Either that or he’d throw himself in a lake. He only needed a moment to rest before he decided.

Then the bolt slid back and the door opened and he nearly collapsed into the room. He did stumble, and hit the floor. He heard the sound of steel being drawn, and wondered who would greet a man with a naked blade.

Then he cursed aloud for being a fool.

She was already helping him up. “My lord — ser Jaime — what are you doing here?”

“Nothing.” And waited, while she sheathed the sword and stepped back. At least she hadn’t taken off his head. Yet. “Nothing, my lady. I didn’t intend to come here. The turns, the castle ... I did not sleep very well.”

She considered him — half-dressed and filthy with dried sweat, leaning against her wall, swearing it was a mistake — and moved past him, to shut the door again. Shutting him inside. “You did very well this morning, sparring against the master.”

Was she mocking him? “He disarmed me five times, or seven, or more.”

“He has trained for years, and has not had to learn again from the start as a man full-grown.” She moved around the room as she spoke, hanging up her own sword. The one he gave her, and gave her again when she tried to return it, like he would give a gift on credit. She’d argued with him both times.

Nothing in his life was more certain than the knowledge Brienne would argue with him. He smiled.

She frowned. “You may think what you please.”

“I apologize. My mind had wandered. And I am sorry for intruding, you are readying to sleep ...”

“You are not intruding.”

“... and I only came by mistake.”

“My room is three halls from yours.”

“The — the way twists. I was tired, from — from training. And I slept little.” Must he keep mentioning that? He should have lost his tongue rather than his hand.

Her expression didn’t change: she knew exactly how little he had spent, and why. “I can walk you to your rooms, if you think you’ll get lost again along the way.”

“ _Could_ you? Such a fine — a fine knight. So responsible. Helping the poor, saving the innocent.”

She didn’t respond.

He stared at her. “I am not innocent, Brienne.”

“Nor am I, Ser Jaime.”

Not anymore. “I am sorry for that.”

“Are you?”

Well — yes, he was sorry for it. In a manner of speaking. “I took advantage of you.”

Her gaze jerked up. “You did what?”

“You were a maid, an innocent —“

“A _what?”_

Hadn’t she been? He didn’t have a huge amount of experience with virgins. “Unless you deceived me—“

She laughed aloud.

He stammered. “Unless I ... unless ... damn it all, I am sorry. I am sorry for it.”

“For what?”

“For ...” Kissing her. Touching her. No, he wasn’t goddamn sorry for that, he’d be damned if he _apologized_ for wanting her, for having her body under him, bringing those lovely noises out.

Or for wanting to do it again.

He swore.

She considered him. “You’re filthy.”

“I am.” And sore, and aching in many ways and for many reasons.

“Let me call you a bath.”

“No.”

“No?” She stopped, with her hands on his tunic. She had it half opened already.

She was very very good at taking off his clothes, he needed to remember that.

“What are you afraid of, my lord Lannister?”

“Don’t call me that. You know what I’m afraid of.”

She went back to pulling out his laces, more slowly now. He felt the tension and then the slight pop of its release.

“I’m afraid ...” He was afraid if he stayed here he would do something he wanted to do. He took a deep breath. “Brienne. If you take off my clothes I will take you to bed, work-dirty as I am, and I will keep you there all night and all tomorrow, and every day and night after, as long as you allow me to do it, and if you don’t stop, if you don’t move your hands off me _right now ...”_

She stopped. She did not move away. “I know you act like an idiot half the time. I never actually considered that it might be true.”

That was too far. “I’m not —“

“Do I have my teeth, my lord Jaime Lannister?”

“Most of them.” He could kill whoever knocked that one out of her mouth, although he suspected she’d already done so. Maybe he could find the corpse and stab it again. “Stop calling me that.”

“Does it offend you, my lord? Knight of the white ... whatever? Am I bruised, my lion?”

“No.” It wasn’t true — she always had bruises — but there were no more than usual.

Probably he’d left some bite marks hidden somewhere beneath her clothes, on those long thighs, maybe. He wanted to see them again. Just to check. “You look perfectly normal. What are you rattling on about, _my lady_?”

“If you’d raped me last night —“

He flinched.

“Do you dislike the word? Alright, if you  _fucked_ me and I didn’t want it — you would know, Jaime. You would have a broken arm, a black eye, new scars at the least. Probably you wouldn’t have been able to do it. A one handed man isn’t capable of much, a so-called knight who can barely raise a sword —“

“Don’t.”

“Disarmed five times in as many minutes, I saw you out there today —“

_“Don’t.”_

“Am I insulting you, Jaime Lannister? Does it hurt you to hear the truth? You dare to come here and pretend anything between us was unwilling? If you’d stayed in your own rooms, I wouldn’t have come searching — you know that. So you came here to find me. And you call it a mistake.”

She was very close. He could smell her. The sharp scent of hard work, she must have done something exhausting today. Of course she did; when was Brienne ever satisfied with sitting down to knit?

She said: “I’ve never known you to make mistakes.”

“I spent a year in a bloody dungeon cell. I would not say that was deliberate.”

She brushed it off. “You can’t plan for everything. Ravens are shot down, people die of disease in their beds. Those are not _your_ mistakes. You did not come here in error.”

“Leave me be,” he told her. “And I will go. I will leave you alone.”

She stared at him. “Fine. But wait. Just one more minute.”

And she took off her clothes.

It happened very quickly; this was no strip-tease. Five seconds or ten and she had pushed down her trousers and tugged her shift off over her head and stood bare.

He _had_ left a bruise. The imprint of his hand, three long lines and the pad of his thumb, just above her hip.

He swallowed.

“Tell me again it was a mistake, and I’ll accompany you to your rooms. I’ll make certain you reach them unmolested.”

“Will you — will you go like this? Bareskinned?”

She shrugged. “You’re in a dreadful hurry and I would not delay you. But I’ll take a sword.”

No doubt she would. “They’ll see. The — the marks I left on you. The bruises. Your hip, there.” And a lovebite on her neck, he saw that now, and another fainter at her breast, and ...

He wondered what she had left on him. She was not shy. There must have been something. He hadn’t thought of that. How many people had seen?

“I’m not ashamed of my choices, ser. Are you?”

He shut his eyes — looking at her was not helping his resolve — but that caused its own issues. Memory rose up. “I don’t want ... I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re hurting me now.”

 _No_. “I never —“

“Come to bed with me.”

“You’ll regret it.”

“I won’t. And so what if I do? Isn’t it my choice? You have never once treated me as someone you need to protect. Did all that change when you realized I have a _cunt_?” Her chin was trembling, he couldn’t look at that, he couldn’t make her cry. “I lay with you because I wanted to do it, you stupid shit. I don’t care what people say about me — Jaime, they’ve been calling me your whore for _years_. It never mattered, it wasn’t true six months ago and it wasn’t true this morning when I woke up and found you had crawled out of my bed before dawn like you were _ashamed_ of me. I saw that and I still thought you had some damned sense in your head until you came here to speak lies in my face. _Kingslayer’s whore,_ they hiss at me, and I never felt like it was true before now.”

“Brienne—“

“I have been wanting to lay with you ever since you came back for me, when you found me in that bear pit. I thought I was going to die while men _laughed,_ Jaime Lannister, they gave me a wooden sword and told me _Good luck bitch,_ and I thought I was going to die with the sound of men laughing in my ear. But you jumped down and stood in front of me like you had anything better to offer than golden hair and a single hand.

“You think I care about what people say? I lay with you and took you inside me because I felt like I would die if I didn’t have you. I — I think I’ve been dying a little, all this past year, every time I see you and cannot touch you, Jaime, I would have bedded you atop the great table in the hall while everyone watched, if I had to do it, if that was the only way for us.

”And no one could have said a word about it that would make me feel like a whore. Except you.”

He didn’t answer.

“Well?” she said. “What do you say? Am I the Kingslayer’s slut or yours?”

”Don’t say — you’re not. You’re _not_. You know I want you, you know that, you’ve known it for ... But I can’t be here with you, like this. People will see. They’ll talk. I don’t care what they say of me but I won’t _let_ them say those things about you. I won’t let anyone call you that.”

”You can’t stop them, Jaime. You can only make it true: or not.”

They stared at each other.

”So what will you do? Is it my bed you want tonight, or your own?”

 _Tonight,_ she said, as if it were the only thing that mattered. “Yours. I want yours. Wherever you’re sleeping, I want to be there, if — if you’ll have me. But what of tomorrow? If I am found in your bed, in your room ...”

“We’ll figure it out. Are you afraid of facing it with me? Come on.”

So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after this they take a bath because he really does smell, and she is also fragrant


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 25 June 2019.

”Don’t sleep yet. Talk to me. You wanted me all that time ago?”

She made a soft noise.

“I thought you hated me. What with the insults, and the scorn, and —“

“Insults? I never.”

“You called me a coward and a fool. And a poor swordsman.”

“I never said anything to you that wasn’t true,” she said back, in a half-whisper: and he laughed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could have ...”

“You could have mocked me for years? What an exciting prospect. I have a desperate lack of male scorn in my life.”

“You are peppery, for a woman who recently swore aloud and bit the meat of my shoulder in her pleasure.”

She didn’t argue that point. “You would never have wanted me then. Never.”

Jaime considered all the times he had imagined her beneath him and said nothing.

“What?”

“Nothing. Only ... only that I spent half the walk through the Riverlands thinking of ...”

She colored — it was just light enough to see that much. “You did not.”

“I certainly did.”

“You spent that entire time complaining.”

“A man can do two things at once,” he said, annoyed.

She said: “Not that I’ve noticed.”

He smothered his laugh in her skin. “Wench. What would you know of it?” He had thought about her plenty. First with scorn — she was so ugly, and prickly as a hedgehog, and so tall — but then he found himself distracted by the way she moved, not at all properly feminine and perfumed, but not masculine either; she did not ape the part of a knight. She simpy got on with things.

 _Are you a virgin?_ he’d asked her, like it was his business. He couldn’t remember what she’d answered.

And he had thought of taking her there on the ground. He’d done that with Cersei once, both stealing away to the godswood in the afternoon, and it was only that her septa found a leaf caught up in her braids ...

_What did you say?_

_What_ could _I say? ‘Oh yes, that must have happened when Jaime had me down on my back in the forest?’_   _Don’t be stupid._

_So you acted ignorant? Thank the gods you get a lot of practice pretending to be sweet and —_

Was that the first time she slapped him? He thought it was.

He hadn’t laughed, then, as he was always careful to laugh afterwards; he’d been furious, he’d struck out at her in return and she caught his hand and bit it until she drew blood.

He jerked it back and stared at her. _This is as much your fault as it is mine!_

_If you weren’t such an idiot, it wouldn’t have happened. But no, you wanted me in the trees ..._

_I want you,_ he’d said, _wherever I can have you, and whenever I can have you, and in whatever part of you that you allow me to enter._

_Jaime._

_And when you wed that lumbering —_

_Don’t._

_I’ll call him whatever I lik_ e, _since he’s robbing me, he’s taking what is mine ... when you marry that oaf, that_ Baratheon _, will you deny me then?_

She had said something meaningless, he didn’t remember what, and they had done it again in her room.

Ah, youth.

 

In the Riverlands, in the afternoon, he’d stumbled and tore open a long patch of the skin on his wrist. The misstep was not feigned. A full day of walking was too much for him; he was still so damned weak.

Brienne had stopped at once and tied him down where he stood. She didn’t bother answering his questions (“What are you doing? Planning to cut off my manhood and eat it? You’ll need a bigger pot”); she only made a small, tidy fire and boiled water, and cleaned the skin under his manacle.

He stared at her.

“An infected wound can kill, and I intend to keep you alive,” she said.

“For the Starks to kill me.” _Or my father._

“What the gods want done with you is not my business.”

And then they went on.

 _Crunch, crunch_. The leaves spoke more than she did.

He wished he could see her. Even an ugly woman was a woman, and it had been ... how long? One year in the cell, and then how much longer, since he’d had more than a few minutes to be alone with Cersei?

They did what they could, they always did, and more than once they were interrupted with his hand inside her. She’d stand up — nearly breaking his fingers — and he would have to wipe his damp hand on his trousers and pray no one smelled her scent on him or noticed the shuffling way he moved, with the world’s most swollen pair of balls, while she flirted and smiled at whomever had came in, and he did his level best not to simply push her down on a table and —

 _Why do you tease me like this,_ he’d said once, pushing up her skirt, one arm around her waist. _You must be the worst woman in the world._

She’d shifted. Palmed him. _You don’t seem to mind._

He’d sworn at her then and bent her over and took her hard, hand over her mouth while she moaned. She was already swelling with Myrcella, and he liked to see her so — wearing the evidence of his efforts — even knowing it could get them both beheaded, or worse.

When their children were born, he permitted himself to hold them awhile. Robert was gone hunting, he was always hunting, he hated the noise of childbed, and Jaime threatened to skewer anyone who kept him away from his dear, his precious, his beloved sister in her trials —

So he was the first person to touch his children, after the nurses, while Cersei slept.

He held them squalling against him and told them what he couldn’t ever say again: _You are love, you are made of love, I love your mother and I love you and I will never tell you more than this but it will be true forever, forever._

He’d whisper that in their sea-shell ear and kiss them, still smelling of blood and milk, still slippery from the passage between her legs. _I love you._

And then he gave them back.

 

Brienne had let him have a fair amount of slack on his lead, which he had supposed he should be grateful for, he supposed he _was_  grateful, he wondered what he can do to show his gratitude ...? And would she be be loud meanwhile, or quiet?

She’d been loud enough cutting up those rapers, silent when she stabbed one where he’d bleed out slow.

Now she slept on the forest floor — mouth half-open, eyes fluttering, dreaming, mumbling something.

Her hands twitched.

What could she be dreaming of? Big stupid wench, pretending to be a knight like a child playing at ...

Although she’d cut down the men without a single hesitation. She lied to them cleverly enough too, he thought. He hadn’t expected that.

And he didn’t expect her hands to shake him awake out of a dream, a nightmare where the King would not die no matter how often Jaime stabbed him, the sword went through him and dissolved and stung his hands like fire, he was burning, and the king was laughing, laughing, while Jaime screamed —

“Lannister! Jaime, Jaime, wake up!”

He woke, staring up at her face.

She was pale. “You were — making noise. In your sleep.”

“Dreams.” He brushed his hands together; they were tingling, the nerves jumpy under the skin. “Only dreams.”

“But —

“I’m fine. Are you ready? We can leave.”

She didn’t reply, just gave him the slack to stand and waited for him to steady on his feet.

 

They walked next to each other that day. He didn’t ask why. It wasn’t like her to be incautious.

She had a leaf on her back.

He wanted to touch her. To take it off. He thought he might come away minus a hand if he tried, however. “Ser Brienne.”

“I am no knight.”

It was a term of honor; why did she sound so damned insulted? “Beg pardon, my lady.”

“What is it, Kingslayer?”

“You have a leaf on your back.”

She stopped: so he had to stop too, or be thrown off his feet. “Why are you looking at me?”

“I’m not, I’m only —“

“Walk! And keep your mouth shut. We’re near the king’s road.”

So he walked and he kept silent, and he only _thought_ the things he would like to do, the words he would like to have her say.

 

*

 

He was nearly asleep, head tucked against her chest like a bird under its wing, when she said: “I thought about you, too.”

She had not. “When? Not on the road, you didn’t.”

 _No_ , she admitted. Not then. But later.

“When you saw me in the baths?” He smiled. “I knew you looked.”

“I didn’t!”

Liar. “So, when?”

“One of the rare times you wore all your proper clothes,” she snapped.

“Mm. And you regretted that?”

No reply.

“You wished me out of them.”

Silence.

“Don’t pretend to sleep, I felt you smile against my arm. Brienne. _Brienne_. You liar. You’ve undressed me in your mind a dozen times —”

She made a soft noise of dissent.

“ _More_ than that? My good ser, I am shocked. Shocked and appalled. And I demand explanation. Tell me about this. Tell me how you’ve wanted me. With details, please. What did you do to yourself when you thought of it?”

She mumbled something that sounded very much like “idiot.”

“Oh well, I can imagine well enough on my own. I suppose you wanted me there on the road, my hand on your breast, my face between your legs —“

“Jaime!”

“Just think how much nicer this all would be, if I had two hands. I can still put one inside you as it is, and lick around it, but then I’ve no way to hold you in place —“

She was blushing. Gods save them both, he hadn’t had her nearly enough if she could still blush about these things. “Lower your voice. It’s early yet. Let people sleep.”

“I could tie you down,” he said, “if we find a bed with carving to allow it. Or if we go outside, mayhap, on a tree. I’ve had enough of being at your mercy, wouldn’t you like a chance —“

“King’s Landing.”

What?

“It was when we were at King’s Landing.”

He squinted. “I was clothed all of that time.” Most of it. There had been a long bath, and a stolen afternoon with Cersei, and —

“You were practicing, sparring, with Ser Bronn.”

Oh, _him_. “He was no knight.”

“He is now. And he’s always been kind to me. Unlike some.”

He grunted. “If he was _kind_ to you, it was because he wanted to fuck you.”

“Is that why he treats _you_ well? ... Not everyone is a Lannister. And most of us don’t want to be.”

“So, what. I was sparring. Did I do well? Did I win?”

“He disarmed you on the first stroke.”

Humph. “Well, I —“

“And you clenched your jaw, and picked up your sword, and he disarmed you again.”

Now, that really was rude. “ _You_ couldn’t disarm me, back when I had my sword hand.”

She ignored this, slipping her leg between his. “I looked at you, stubborn as a stone wall and starting over from nothing, and I thought: _That_ is Jaime Lannister.”

“Yes,” he said, pained at this description. “A useless one-handed fool who can’t even —“

“A man who doesn’t give up. Who helped me, over and over, when he had no reason to do it and every reason not to do it. You were going home, Jaime, you were safe. And you turned around and came back —“

“Was I supposed to let them serve you up for a night’s entertainment?”

“For nothing of your own, I could give you _nothing_ for it, and you barely got out with your skin intact. Sapphires indeed. You know why they call Tarth that.”

It could be named for the blue of her eyes. “You wanted me because I am a fool?”

“Yes,” she said: and he had nothing to say.

She moved her hand down to where he was soft and began to stroke him softly. Still she held his gaze. “You’ve never treated me like a lady.”

“Rare enough that you act like one. Or dress like one. Or talk like — _Brienne_.”

“I did think of you, when I saw you like that. I didn’t want to do it.”

Such compliments. He tried to say something clever and managed only a hitching breath. _Brienne_.

“I dreamt of you. And I woke up with my — I was —“ She took a deep breath. “I woke up feeling my pulse between my legs, I was hot from wanting you, and I could not go to sleep for it. I kept thinking of you against me. I thought ...”

He shivered. “You thought — what?”

“I didn’t know what it was like — oh, don’t give me that pitying expression! I knew what happens well enough, it seems like men don’t speak of anything else, but I didn’t know what ... how it felt.”

“You were a maid.”

She shook her head. “Not that. I didn’t know how it was to want someone.”

Her hand was warm and sure. He tried to speak and lost his voice.

“The thought of you kept me up — it rode me — it was as loud as your voice ever was.”

He saw himself, practicing, unaware. Saw himself chasing Cersei. Saw himself seeing Brienne, feeling her eyes on him, thinking it was hatred or scorn. And all that time ...

“You should have told me.” He reached for her, found her where he wanted to be.

She pushed his hand away.

 _No_. “Fair is fair, Brienne of Tarth. I want you —“

“I am _touching_  you —“

“I want your body clenching down on my fingers. I want you wet, I want —”

He had that now, and he had her mouth seeking his, kisses loose with desire, and her hand damp on him, and it wasn’t enough. “I need more than this. Let me go inside.”

She shook her head. “I’m sore.”

She probably was, but he didn’t like to hear it. “Then let me eat at you.”

“Let you _eat_ — Jaime, that sounds awful.”

He shut his eyes. The things she didn’t know, yet. 

But it was fine, for now, this was fine — he pulled her on top — she made a sound between a laugh and a gasp and she made it again when his hand found her again, thumb rubbing slow and light. “Is this painful?”

“But now I can’t touch you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Lies, lies. But he wanted to watch her, now in the halflight, he could watch how her eyes fluttered shut and her lips twitched and a blush traveled down, down from her cheeks to her throat and chest, beautifully deep pink, the color of sunrise.

 _Jaime_ she said, eyes shut, and she held still and he held still inside her until she could move again, til she leaned forward to find his mouth and kiss him, to shift off him, and he was wet from her, he was kissing her and he was aching and hard and hadn’t slept in two nights and he couldn’t remember being so grateful, so sure, ever in his life.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stop whining. Haven’t you ever had your nose broken before?”
> 
> He stared at her through his one open eye. “Does my nose _look_ as though it’s been broken before?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 25 june 2019.

“We heard Ser Jaime bed you last night,” said someone. Ser Metros, she thought his name was.

She glanced up, without lifting her head, and saw every face was focused on the board in front of it.

So this was a planned attack.

Poor ser ... whatever-his-name-was. What had he done to draw the short straw?

She had to reply, or become a fool.

“No,” she said, and took a fistful of dried fruit for her gruel. Thin, watery stuff. “You didn’t hear Jaime bedding me. You heard _me_  taking  _him_.”

Laughter.

Jaime eyed her.

She didn’t look at him, because if she met his eye he would speak and it would make everything worse and she would end up having to beat him upside his head, and she rather liked his head as it was — stupid, irritating man, always looking at her like he wasn’t quite certain, ...

“I thought there weren’t much purchase in sleeping with knights. Guess I’ve spent my life chasing the wrong sort of tail.”

More laughter.

Jaime stiffened.

Brienne sat back, dragging her spoon through the grey stuff. She stretched out a leg and stomped it down on his booted foot, hard. _Sit down, Jaime, I told you to keep your mouth shut, I told you to let me handle it ..._

No one spoke for a while, at least not so she’d hear, not about them. She had actually let herself relax, she began to consider eating the unappetizing breakfast she needed to eat, and Jaime had waved over a steward for seconds.

Then a lull in the noise brought across the voice, saying: “Soon as she made knight, I knew she got there on her knees—”

And before she could drive her knife through his shirt and unto the bench, Jaime was up and across the room, rolling on the filthy rushes with some man, exchanging blows, and she had her sword but no chance of a clean stroke, not like this in front of everyone: she could only stand helpless while Jaime struck him again and again.

 

“Stop flinching.”

He held still after that but kept on complaining as she washed blood and mud and shit and ground-in bits of river rushes off from his face.

She didn’t reply — didn’t even listen, or else she would be yelling too. What sort of an idiot was he? “Done. You’re clean.”

“Good. Because I left some parts of his body unbloodied, and I sorely regret that lack of closure.”

“Jaime. We spoke of this  _yesterday_. Have you forgotten already?”

He set his jaw. “You don’t understand.”

“Really? Please do explain. But make sure to use small words, so I can understand.”

“He was insulting you, Brienne.”

“Nonsense. You only mind because he was saying names about your woman —”

“Yes!” he said — shouted, really. “I don’t want people insulting you! What is so wrong with that?”

She stood up. “Come on. Put on your ‘mail. We’re going outside.”

“What — now?”

“Yes. Because if I _slip_ and take off your head, I want everyone to see it was in clean combat.”

 

 

He chose a practice sword and tested the grip, swinging experimentally, while she watched. He needed to have a new sword made. He needed a lot of things.

She hung back. Waiting.

A crowd grew. No doubt that was part of her plan. He considered that maybe he should have asked for the rest of it.

No matter. He stepped up. “Your call, ser?”

She nodded. Ready.

He tested the weight again — wished for the millioneth time he had his sword hand back — and then she swung.

Clash. Release.

It took his strength to push her back — that was no practice swing. He half-stepped in surprise and she followed, swinging low, so he had to jump back or be cut. “Brienne!”

She came down at him with a two-handed grip and he only raised a clumsy block in time; the weight of the strike knocked his sword out of his hand, it went down and he reached for it, swearing at the jolt; but Brienne reached it first and kicked it away.

There were shouts of complaint.

“Bri- _enne_ ,” said Jaime, complaining likewise — but she advanced on him, point out at his chest, and he scrabbled backwards on hand and feet, slipping on the dirt as his stump failed to find traction. “What—”

“Apologize,” she said to him.

Jaime Lannister looked at the sword’s point on his chest, and at her face, and said nothing.

“Apologize, or take a beating.”

He smiled, cold. “With the edge or the flat?”

“I haven’t decided,” said the knight, through her remaining teeth.

“Brienne—”

She struck him hard against his right shoulder with the flat broad side of the sword, hard enough to make his teeth rattle in his head.

He swore aloud. “Fine! I apologize for standing up for you, Ser Brienne, I —“

She dropped the sword, dropped to her knees, and broke his nose.

He fell back, knocking his head against the hard-packed dirt of the practice yard, and she hauled him upright with one hand on his tunic, crouching. Her other hand held his face up to face her. “Apologize, ser.”

He looked at her through an eye already starting to purple, through the fingers of his hand. It did little: blood dripped down and spattered his front. “I cry your pardon, my lady.”

Something twitched on her face. “Come on,” she said, low. “Stand up, so they don’t think I’ve killed you. Go to your rooms and call a bath. I’ll clean up here.”

 

“You didn’t have to ruin my beauty.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to hit you quite that hard.”

“You did that deliberately?” He lowered his head — he’d been holding it tilted back to help the bleeding stop — and stared at her. “I thought you lost your temper.”

“You’ve never seen me lose my temper.”

He considered this. “I think I am grateful to be on your good side, then. Brienne, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know that.”

“But you didn’t even let me explain—”

“Stop talking! Stop trying to explain! I have had enough of men and their damned _explainations!”_

He put his head back again and didn’t say anything. His voice sounded funny to his own ears anyway, strange and off-pitch. Wrong.

She set her jaw. “Men. It’s always _men_. And men always think they have the right to say anything to a woman. As if that worm between your legs gives you any great understanding. Listen to me, Jaime Lannister: You know nothing of being a woman.”

Well, of course he didn’t.

“You’re only a man. You only know ... that much.” She held her finger and thumb apart, barely half an inch. “But _I_ know how to be a man — I have to know, or else I couldn’t survive. And I know being a woman, I have to know that too ... Come here, let me see your nose. Does it need to be set?”

He certainly hoped not. “It’s bleeding still, I don’t want —“

“I’ve bled every month since I was a girl. I am not afraid of blood.”

Her hands were gentle on him, and large, and cool. “Do you think I _wanted_ to beat you in front of everyone?”

Yes. “No.”

She pressed a damp cloth to his eye. “Hold that on there. Jaime, if I let you fight for me, you would be fighting every day.”

But she would be safe. “So now _you’ll_ be fighting? Every day?”

“For a while.” She didn’t seem concerned. “Half of them will accept your beating as their own. The other half will want to try something ... and maybe a third of them will actually do it. That’s — five men? Eight?”

“I don’t want you hurt.”

“I won’t be.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Alright, so I _will_ be hurt. What of it? You can’t protect me. You never wanted to until you bedded me. You’ve helped me, yes, and I’ve helped you ...”

He felt the proof of her _help_ slip liquid down his chin and wondered if he really couldn’t do without it.

“... but you never once thought I needed your manly rescue. Until today.” She regarded him. “Until someone insulted me, and you felt they were insulting _you_.”

He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t insulted, not once, not for a moment, not by anything about her. He wanted to say he’d gut a hundred men for thinking they could call her names.

He wanted to tell her that he’d been afraid — just one sliver of fear — when she put the sword to him — and his fear was that he wouldn’t ever touch her again.

Brienne.

He shifted the cloth on his swollen eye and wished she hadn’t blacked it quite so effectively, so he could see her better. “Ser, I apologize. I was in the wrong.”

“And now you know that. Hold still.”

And she set his nose with an audible _pop,_ whileJaime held very still and said the worst words he could think of.

She smiled at him. “Keep your head tilted back, Lannister. It’ll stop bleeding soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you could kill a man by breaking his nose in the right way, and by “you” i mean “Brienne”

**Author's Note:**

> at this point i maybe can’t write fic unless it’s on my phone


End file.
